The invention relates to membranes, and more particularly to methods of making membrane assemblies.
Typically, membrane filters are employed in biological applications involving separation of molecules in biological fluids. Most of the membrane filters employ polymer membranes or ceramic membranes. For example, polyester, polyvinylidene fluoride, zirconium oxide, silicon carbide, alumina, are some of the materials used to make membranes. Disadvantageously, most of the existing membranes have broad pore size distribution. In other words, the size of the pores on a given membrane, or from membrane to membrane, are inconsistent and vary greatly over a large range. Due to large pore size distribution, the separation process suffers. For example, species that are intended to be retained by the filter, may pass through the filter due to large pore size distribution. Further, in case of ceramic membranes, an additional disadvantage is that these membranes are quite thick and, as a result, have relatively low throughput, thereby adversely affecting the efficiency of the filtration process. These membranes also lack the robustness desired for protein and other biomolecule processing.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a membrane that has uniform pore size distribution and enhanced robustness for use in virus filtration or clearance, protein fractionation, protein purification, protein desalting, and the like.